X-bit labs

NVIDIA nForce3 250 is Coming Closer!

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/09/2004 | 10:41 AM ]

Long-awaited NVIDIA nForce3 250 core-logic originally scheduled to come in Fall 2003, is nearly here by now, it seems. NVIDIA recently confirmed the existence of the product in one of its public statements, while DFI and Chaintech are showing off its nForce3 250-based mainboard at Consumer Electronics Show 2004.

The nForce3 250 family of chipsets is expected to support AMD 64-bit 754-pin, 939-pin and 940-pin microprocessors and is ready to power both high-end AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 FX microprocessors as well as performance-mainstream AMD Athlon 64 chips. The nForce3 250 products are very likely to bring a number of advanced features its predecessor – NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 – lacks, such as 2 Serial ATA-150 ports as well as external 2 Serial ATA-150 PHY support in addition to presently available AGP 8x, PCI, 2 ATA-33/66/100/133 channels with RAID 0,1 and 0+1 support, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet, USB 2.0, etc.

An advanced version of the nForce3 250 series – the nForce3 250Gb – adds Gigabit Ethernet support and promises to be the world’s first core-logic to integrate native Gigabit Ethernet inside the chip.

To provide even more value for enterprise customers, NVIDIA is rumored to incorporate its FireWall technology for enhanced network security into its next-generation core-logic components.

Two leading mainboard manufacturers – Chaintech and DFI – are currently showcasing NVIDIA nForce3 250-based mainboards, as I read over AnandTech today.

DFI’s LanParty NF3-250 is designed for Socket 754 processors from AMD, has 3 DIMM slots for up to 3GB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM, 1 AGP 8x slot, 5 PCI slots, 1 CMR slot, 3 Parallel ATA-33/66/100/133 channels, 2 Serial ATA-150 with RAID support, 6-channel audio, USB 2.0 and FireWire ports and so on. ANF3-250 from Chaintech boasts practically same list of capabilities, but is also equipped with a special cooling system for CPU voltage regulators. Both mainboard are equipped with Gigabit Ethernet controller from Broadcom.

According to AnandTech, vendors showing the nForce3 250 at CES were displaying the A02 chipset revision in the demonstration mainboards. However, the A03 revision is expected shortly, which most likely be the shipping revision of the chipset.

Announcement date of the NVIDIA nForce3 250 and 250Gb is not clear at this time.